burst firing muzzle loaders

[barnetmill]

I recall that there was a way of loading muzzle loaders with multiple charges in line. You ignited the anterior charge and about a second later the wadding between the first charge and the 2nd would ignite the 2nd charge in so on. Once it started it would not stop until all loaded charges were fired.

Does anyone know if this was considered full auto? I believe this was intended for naval engagements about the very early 19th century.

[J.D.B.]

You're not thinking of trying this are you? Sounds really.....different. I've only got about 13 years experience muzzle loading but have never heard of this layering idea. Keep researching it, maybe here:http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...s/Default.aspx
Someone of those scholars over there would be good to ask. Real nice and helpful group, too.
Josh

[CobrayCommando]

At Gettysburg muzzleloaders were often found loaded with 27 shots in them. The low pressures and heavy barrels of the day meant that no harm would be done by having the barrel obstructed.

PS the reason they were loaded this way was because soldiers would mime shooting, then load the gun, and mime shooting etc. The vast majority of soldiers in the civil war deliberately aimed their gun away from the enemy or simply didn't fire.

Hence battle lines could form 100 feet away from each other and shoot for hours with only 5-10 percent casualties. Until the inevitable bayonet charge that is.

[deadin]

Great way to blow up a gun! Pray tell, how does one fire the "anterior" load?
The nipple channel connects to the rearmost load.
There were experiments with this type of loading with multiple nipples and hammers. Even one in flintlock with a sliding lock. None were reliable.

CobrayCommando,
Would you care to list your sources for your statement?
Multi-charged rifles were found on battlefields, but I've never heard of the reason being that the "vast majority" of soldiers were apparently CO's and wouldn't fire on the enemy.

Dean

[joab]

I've heard of volley guns but never chain fire guns

[fisherman66]

Sounds like a Roman candle.

Our military is/was working on a similar concept, but I have no idea where that it in develpment.

[Dave Haven]

Sounds like a Roman candle.

Yup. Roman Candle gun.
The fun started when the person firing the gun dropped it before it was empty.

[P226]

Would you care to list your sources for your statement?

I am not sure if this is the book CobrayCommando was referring to, but Lt. Col. Dave Grossman published a book on the psychological affects of killing on soldiers where he makes similar claims as CobrayCommando. Grossman's argument is intriguing, but highly controversial. The book is called "On Killing", and is definitely worth a read.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031...Fencoding=UTF8

[4V50 Gary]

When I read this post, it sounded familiar and I vaguely recalled a muzzleloader that had multiple discharges with one pull of the trigger.

The easiest system was the Belton which had a barrel loaded with a ball (perhaps a wad seal) & powder, placed atop another load of ball & powder. The flintlock lock was slid along the stock and stopped before each touch hole. It could be fired at least a dozen times. It was suppose to be an American secret weapon.

Before the Belton, there was a four barrel matchlock pistol that could discharge fifteen sequential shots with one pull of the trigger. You can see it on page 105 of M. L. Brown's Firearms in Colonial America.

Now, as to the single barrel roman candle type gun that BarnetMill mentioned, I'm going to have to look some more into it. I recall reading something about it but my memory is cluttered with too much sharpshooter stuff to remember it right now. Give me a couple of weeks (I'm going AWOL 2/7 and won't be back until 2/12) to see what I can find.

[gmatov]

Deadin,

I have read the same, arms collected after a battle were unloaded and many were found multi loaded, sometimes to near the muzzle, not because of CO status, but because of what is also a modern phenomenom, "buck fever". Point, think you shot, reload, repeat. 20 + loads in many of the weapons.

In all the wars we have been involved in, the same has happened, as to rounds expended, sometimes as many as 1000 per hit, or per enemy casualty.

Look at the 6 o'clock news when they show the shooting in the Middle East. Under the camera, one of the "good guys" is talking to the reporter, reaches his sub-machine gun over his head, toward the enemy's position, fires off a magazine. "See, I'm fighting."

Cheers,

George

[Hafoc]

There were muzzle-loading guns, including one cap and ball revolver, that had two shots per barrel (or chamber). I can't remember the manufacturer's name, but the revolver in question had two hammers, one for the forward charge and one for the rear. Other than that, it looked fairly normal. It even made a guest appearance in a Louis L'Amour western, where the hero suckered a baddie by firing six shots and pretending to have run out.

Little more than a curiosity even in its day, and obviously something that had no future once metallic cartridges came along.

[Steve499]

I recall seeing a carriage mounted gun where the barrels were all mounted harmonica fashion. It was a volley gun where one barrel's discharge ignited the next, and so on. I don't recall it's name.

Steve

[4V50 Gary]

Steve, that might be the Billinghurst-Requa gun that was used at Battery Wagner at Morris Island, near Charleston, during the Mother of American Family Feuds (ACW).

[deadin]

The superimposed loading revolver was the Walch. There are a couple of versions.
As for the Grossman book mentioned as a source by P226, I haven't read it, but after perusing the table of contents, it appears to be another of one of those "psycho-babble" books that can neither be proved nor disproved. I do not believe that a "vast majority" of Civil War soldiers consciously and intentionally "mimed" shooting or "pulled" their shots. I think it was more of a case, as pointed out by gmatov, spray and pray. This held as true in the Civil War as lt does today. As much as we would like to think otherwise, a "Nation of Riflemen", we're not. If we were all Carlos Hathcocks, "one shot-one kill", "Reach out and touch someone", battles woudn't last long. Send out a thousand "riflemen" with one 20 rd. magazine each, that's 20,000 enemy casualities.
It's more of a case of pointing your rifle in the general direction of the enemy and letting the laws of chance take over. (These odds can be raised by putting more rounds downrange.) If you are being shot at and the only way to make it stop is to take out the shooter, you're not going to intentionally try to miss, or not return fire at all. You may not expose yourself to take careful aim, but you will do something, even if it is to panic. (see "buck-fever" above).
Besides, if everybody were "miming" it would be a pretty quiet battle. I would think the OIC might notice.

Dean

[Jim Watson]

I have seen pictures of the Belton sliding lock system that Gary describes.

There were true roman candle guns which loaded stacked powder charges and balls, with holes in the balls to communicate fire back to the next charge. The lock fired the top charge and the rest fired in "full automatic" unstoppably until the gun was empty... or until the fuse powder going through one ball didn't burn.

There is a brief description of the type and of a more complicated but probably more reliable design at:
http://www.scotwars.com/html/equip_firearms2.htm

The Metalstorm weapon is of multiple roman candle design but with electrical ignition so you can turn it off. You know, they never talk about reloading those. I guess they will go only to Authorized Personnel and the taxpayer will just pay for preloaded stacked charge barrels to be used once and thrown away.

[Ohio Annie]

Having recently read "On Killing," it is definitely NOT "psychobabble" and he makes a good case for many phenomena, such as differences in willingness to kill and the modern emphasis on operant conditioning. It is a must read for anybody who carries concealed, in my opinion.

[CobrayCommando]

I was referring to On Killing.

[deadin]

I was referring to On Killing.

It is a must read for anybody who carries concealed

I think this might be a good subject for further discussion. However I don't think that this is the topic (Black Powder and Cowboy Action Shooting) it should be discussed in.
I am going to start a new thread in the General Discussion topic. If the moderators feel it would be better served elsewhere, please move it.

See you over there..

Dean